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Learning how to take a dive
 THE adventure starts in unlikely surroundings, an upstairs office in Launceston. We pore over books and watch instructional videos but theory soon gives way to practice and in the space of two weekends we are submerged among the flounders, stingrays and octopuses of Fortescue Bay on the Tasman Peninsula.
The dive course is on for young and older. The youngest of our learning group, is 12-year-old Tom White, of Launceston, who is accompanied by his father and qualified diver, Andrew White. We also have some teenagers. My daughter, Kelsey Scott, 15, and her friend Eleanor Holloway, 15, are gaining their open-water tickets before their grade 10 school year starts. Another teen, 15-year-old Trent Page, is also qualifying under the watchful gaze of his father, Larry. Three men - Nick Roney, Will Sauer and David Bott - round off the students in Launceston, where the course is run by Go Dive instructor Andrew Fitzgerald. I'm doing the course as a refresher after my first open-water dive training in 1984. The combination of the first weekend's full-on theory and Sunday's full-day session in Riverside pool is exhausting. There's been a lot of Christmas pudding in my training regime lately, so dive fitness is going to come slowly, if at all. The highlight of that pool session is seeing students use their breathing apparatus for the first time. A lot of the theory is aimed at telling people what to do when something goes wrong but most diving is - at least should be - all about breathing easily and enjoying the underwater environment. When one of the students breaks the water of the pool and says simply, "I can do it", it's a sign that we are making progress. We practise drills in the water, such as rolling into a weight belt, bringing air to a diver whose tank has run dry and making emergency ascents. There are various signals to learn: the most common is the touching of the thumb and index finger in both question and answer: "Are you OK?. Yes I'm OK." Making a cutting sign with a palm-down hand in front of your neck indicates that you are out of air. Might be good to know, that one. Mr Fitzgerald, who has been running the Go Dive franchise in Launceston for four years, finishes the first weekend by telling students that he is impressed with their progress. That's an "OK" signal all around. The following and final weekend of qualification is run at Taranna, near Eaglehawk Neck on the Tasman Peninsula. Dive plans are discussed and we head to Fortescue Bay for the first of two dives. This area is within the Tasman National Park and it's the weekend before Australia Day so I'm surprised that several of the 40 camp sites are unoccupied. Great beaches, great diving and a toilet block - Fortescue Bay immediately slips into my list of places to pitch a tent and linger longer. In the benign, 17-degree brine of Fortescue Bay we repeat our drills underwater, diver by diver, either watched by Mr Fitzgerald, instructor Sharon De Villiers, or several other helpers at various levels of advanced diver training. One of the more challenging underwater skills is the partial mask flood. You let water into your mask up to about eye level, then hold the top of your mask, tilt your head and blow hard through your nose. Hey presto, you have a clear mask. The afternoon dive finishes with a navigation exercise and as we near shore Mr Bott spots an octopus, about the size of a football, which gives us a few minutes of viewing time before speeding off. We emerge after two dives and return to Go Dive's lodge at Taranna for a barbecue and a night's sleep. Our final day of the dive course involves two boat dives out of Pirates Bay. I count more than 50 empty boat trailers near the ramp at the Blowhole and as we leave Pirates Bay to cruise south it seems they have all been laying crayfish pots. The cliffs around Little Waterfall Bay are a magnificent backdrop for our first dive. This underwater environment is rich with kelp and scalefish and jellyfish and abalone and just about everything that makes temperate diving so surreal. After a hot-soup lunch we head north of Pirates Bay to Fallen Cliff, where, as the name suggests, a rockfall has tumbled big blocks of stone into the water. Spirits are rising as students realise they are nearly ticketed divers. Communication underwater is fairly limited but I'm lucky enough to have finished my final drill before the girls have started theirs. So I get to kneel among the bull kelp and watch, at nine metres, as Mr Fitzgerald gives first Kelsey, then Eleanor, their final instructions. Eleanor removes her mask and looks through the salt water at the blur in front of her. She fits the mask, expels air through the nose and has vision again. Mr Fitzgerald gives her the double-OK signal and shakes her hand. Here, submerged under Fallen Cliff, Eleanor and the rest of Mr Fitzgerald's dive students have passed their final test. IF YOU GO Go Dive Launceston runs advanced and open-water courses through the year. $595 includes boat dives, accommodation, PADI materials, instructor fees, all dives. See www.godivetassie.com.au or phone 63316608. |
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